updated 04:15 pm EST, Fri February 3, 2012

Rogers changes protocols to stop web throttling

Canadian wireless provider Rogers on Friday announced it will stop throttling subscribers' Internet connections. In response to a government Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) cease and desist letter, the carrier wrote (PDF) that it will stop the practice in March. The original complaint that led to the move was filed by Jason Koblovsky on behalf of the Canadian Gamers Organization.

Koblovsky, a systems analyst, ran a speed test on his Internet connection while playing Call of Duty: Black Ops online and found his connection was artificially slowed down. The CRTC then alleged that Rogers violated its traffic management policy that requires carriers get approval to noticeably degrade time-sensitive Internet traffic. This includes gaming and video chatting. Carriers must also disclose such slowdowns to their customers.

Rogers' response included some doubts about the nature of the regulator's findings. It went on to explain that its own internal tests show that a very small amount of real world traffic (about 0.005 percent) was found to be unidentified and therefore throttled by its Internet Traffic Management Practice protocols. It did, however, reprogram its software 'out of an abundance of caution' so that the unclassified traffic would no longer be subjected to throttling.